Weekend Reads for Jan 22

There’s so much of the US under snow this weekend, that it might be the perfect time to curl up by the fire with some great articles that can help your business. This week we take a look at changes happening in SEO, what makes PPC so successful, variations you can use in your social media images, and 7 website elements that will kill your e-commerce conversions.

Online Advertising: What makes Paid Search so damn sexy?: In the world of marketing and advertising, paid search may sometimes lack the sizzle of social, the zing of video and the visual impact of display. But what happens when we look for beauty that’s more than skin-deep? When a French guy like me looks beyond the blue links of paid search, I see a marketing channel that’s sexy as hell for all the right reasons. Voila! – Read More

Search Engine Optimization: Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years: As marketers, we’ve gotten quite good at evolving our playbooks when it comes to SEO. But the changes we’ve seen to this point are nothing compared to what’s coming next. We are in the early stages of a new era of search — an era tied closely to more sophisticated patterns such as mobile, social, and voice search, among other things. And for the first time this isn’t just a matter of adding a new chapter to our SEO strategy, it’s a matter of creating entire new playbooks. – Read More

Social Media: Six Simple Social Media Image Variations: If you’ve been on social media for any length of time, you may be well aware that images can help boost your online engagement. But while it’s true that a picture can add some pizazz to your posts, it’s not always easy to determine the best type of image to publish. Thankfully, deciding which format best suits your posts can be a straightforward process. In this post, I’ll outline a few simple image variations and show you when it might be best to use them. – Read More

Websites: 7 Website Elements that Kill Ecommerce Conversions: We talk all the time about what boosts conversions but little time about existing elements that could be pushing potential customers away. Analytics show us when people leave. We can see exit pages and the time spent on the site. Rarely, though, do visitors tell us what turned them off. Often, they aren’t sure themselves. The trick in finding out what does and doesn’t work is making changes, one at a time, and analyzing. Here is a starting point — a list of common mistakes that could be killing sales. – Read More